


don't you know who i think i am?

by NerumiH



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Child Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Ethari is the soft dad here, Gen, Handful of scenes covering about ten years, Parent Ethari (The Dragon Prince), Parent Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Runaan has issues with Lain & Tiadrin, Runaan is bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26547769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerumiH/pseuds/NerumiH
Summary: Adopting Rayla comes with a ton of baggage thanks to her parents, so Runaan & Rayla have all the wrong expectations of who the other is - or should be.Luckily, Runaan is sure Rayla is special.They just have to...work through some things.-- growing up montage with a side of assassin nonsense
Relationships: Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Rayla & Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The s1 Dragon Prince novel made me even MORE curious about these two and their relationship! We get plenty of that Good Soft Content from the official accounts (ahh the Ethari bday story) but I can't get over how there was room to give Runaan such a hard & believable turn against Rayla. I wanted a look at that weird, complex dynamic that we were never really shown.
> 
> This is the first time I've written fic for something I wasn't really actively...fandom-ing in, so sorry if I mix up any details or plagiarize half the archive or something 
> 
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ enjoy

**.**

**.1.**

**.**

Runaan had always said Rayla was special.

Initially, because Lain and Tiadrin always brought over the toddling elf and Runaan quickly ran out of things to call her that didn’t brush too close to _pest_ or _whirlwind_ or _can you please stop it from sniffing out every breakable thing in this house?_

 _Special_ earned him Lain and Tiadrin going all starry-eyed and sliding into this week’s amazing thing their snotty little daughter had done. It also earned him a warning nudge from Ethari under the table.

And years later, _special_ encompassed all Runaan wanted to say but couldn’t choke out: resilient. Determined. Wiser, smarter than any kid had any reason to be, because Rayla could still hold herself tall after Lain and Tiadrin went missing.

But even then, it got Runaan a warning from his husband, too.

Ethari watches Runaan check the balance on a pair of training knives. Ethari had whittled the wooden things, meant for children’s lessons, down to Rayla’s miniature size.

Runaan answers, “We’ve seen her crawl up shelves without wobbling a book, and lost her to hiding in the cupboards for hours.” He takes a roll of scratchy bandage-like fabric from the workshop table and wraps the handles to roughen up their grip. “That’s already a sign she’s special.”

“She’s a child, not a second try,” Ethari says patiently.

Runaan bristles. “Third try.” Any Dragonguard worth their salt would have stayed fighting after their partner defected.

Ethari doesn’t have to say, _you don’t mean that –_ the syrupy-eyed look screams it for him, and Runaan answers, _I think I do,_ by knotting the fabric and tucking Rayla’s practice weapons in his belt. As he passes, he kisses Ethari on the cheek and thanks him.

A few hours later, Runaan’s gone through the basics with Rayla. (After insisting the wooden knives weren’t meant to dig up flowers, and then that they weren’t meant to put on her head to pretend she had big horns like him, and then, well, they weren’t meant to bring new life to her impression of a feral unicorn as she ran into his legs over and over.)

Now they’re on simple dodges and swings which Rayla’s boundless energy is turning into a whole whirling affair. Every time he (slowly) makes a (light) shot at her, she doesn’t just _flinch_ out of the way, she throws herself into the grass like a moon phoenix diving for prey, giggling the whole time.

“ _Up_ , Rayla,” he says for the millionth time, offering her his hand. For once he’s grateful Lain and Tiadrin encouraged her to climb and run and dodge, so he doesn’t have to endure teaching _that_ class. “You can roll around in the dirt later. Pay attention for twenty minutes more.”

“That’s _forever_ ,” she says. It isn’t even a whine, it’s like she’s stating the hard facts and he’s too blind to know them.

 _That,_ he thinks dryly, _I’ll have to work on as well._ “We’ll practice until lunch. On your feet.”

She reaches out and takes his hand. He tries to heave her up, but finds her pulling back; he can easily overtake her but the shock of her pulling makes him pause. Her pink eyes are determined, even a little flush rising to her cheeks as she pulls and pulls and pulls. _Stubborn like her damned parents,_ he thinks automatically, but shuts down the thought before it lashes back at him.

So, hoping no one sees him doing this, Runaan crouches in the grass. It’s enough for Rayla. She pats around in the green until she finds a few sprouting weeds, their leaves long and ruffled at the edges. She seems to think they’re plenty pretty as she picks them, and then he accepts his fate, looking forlornly at her discarded knives, as she arranges the plants around his horns.

“Runaa’,” she says, in that very sure tone, “you should look fancy when you rescue the Dragon Prince.”

Runaan furrows his brow. He had set the stage for the lesson by explaining the importance of learning how to defend herself and Xadia, and was pleased to hear her chirp the history of the Dragon Prince back to him.

It only stung a bit to realise where she’d learned it – Tiadrin most likely, explaining why Rayla’s parents had to leave for so long. Tiadrin was always more brutally honest with Rayla. And now – _rescue the Dragon Prince –_ Tiadrin wasn’t around to give her the end of the story.

She’s _heard_ it by now. What actually happened. Ethari and Runaan insisted she not join the rest of the young Moonshadow elves in a special meeting where they were delicately told what happened to the prince and her parents. They told her themselves, and the doubts it planted still scratch at him – being unsure if she understood, realising he had no idea how to read her, and even worse, had no idea how to comfort her. Not being sure if their final point of, _uncle Runaan and I are going to take care of you now, okay?_ was reassuring or just as complex and scary as the rest of the whole mess.

Right now, she sounds so very sure, and for a second he enjoys the fantasy that all of it isn’t lost, all of it isn’t over.

For another second he enjoys the fantasy of Tiadrin and Lain explaining the fate of their world to Rayla, but Tiadrin and Lain cannot be alive if the Dragon Prince is gone. Somehow everything makes more sense if they died.

Runaan takes Rayla’s arm and leads her in front of him. He picks up one of the knives and presses it into her hand, trying to convey the weight of it. “You must take this seriously.”

“Seriously until lunch,” she says.

“At _least_ ,” he returns, feeling profoundly stupid for negotiating with a child.

“ _Buuuuut_ ,” Rayla says, and puts the knife hilt to her forehead, her eyes going too wide and innocent, “unicorns _never_ need to be serious.”

He’s at a loss for what to snap back, his patience thin, but not for the first or last time, his husband saves him from the dastardly clutches of trying to get a child to listen. Ethari opens the back door of the home, surprising Rayla with his voice and the smell of food wafting out the kitchen.

“It’s early, but – “ Ethari starts.

“It’s _fine,”_ Runaan sighs.

Rayla, still wearing her knife like a horn, goes scurrying into the house with possibly the worst impression of a whinny he has _ever_ heard, while Runaan gets her other knife from the grass and shakes out the weeds from his hair.

**.**

**.2.**

**.**

The assassination mission at the border woods took a month to spit Runaan back out.

And Runaan’s private midnight recovery with Ethari took an hour before he had to brace himself again – this time for Rayla, rather than for a band of armed humans and their junior mage sniffing around for something useful to poach.

Runaan says, catching Ethari’s sleeve before he leaves Runaan alone on the sofa, “Don’t wake her for my sake.”

“She insisted I tell her right when you got home.” Ethari lifts an eyebrow. “Or are you not ready to face an eight-year-old?”

“I’d rather I look a little more impressive, is all,” Runaan says into his cup of tea. Rayla’s seen him in worse states than strapped for sleep and his white hair in a messy low bun, but she _hasn’t_ yet seen him staggering out the other end of an entourage of armed and far-too-entitled humans. The worst of it is covered by wrapped bandages and soft-worn robes, and Ethari did some tender work on his ego, but he’s still a spot uncertain.

Ethari smiles, warmth in his gold eyes despite the tease: “I gave you a whole hour to pull it together, Grand Assassin.”

“Oh, but I didn’t know I’d have such a special audience.”

Ethari delicately arranges Runaan’s white hair over the unsightly black gash at the root of his horn, for Rayla’s sake. Runaan’s been able to keep from scaring Rayla off the path of an assassin so far, since all his work has been scouting, spying, the occasional small scuffle and slit throat at the border. The serious work comes surprisingly rarely. Maybe the humans are learning to keep their hands to themselves. But he feels like he should have brought a speech to reassure her that none of this diminishes the pride of protecting Xadia – even if he is reluctant to rest on a couple of ribs.

Soon after, Ethari returns, carrying a drowsy Rayla to Runaan’s side. He sits on the arm of the sofa near Runaan’s feet and jostles Rayla gently. She’s getting a bit big to be carried, no longer a stumbling wee sprout, but Runaan recalls how young she still is as she rubs her eyes to open them.

Runaan sits up best he can as Ethari sets Rayla on the cushions. She brightens immediately – before Ethari can hold her back, she throws her arms around Runaan in a strangling hug.

Ethari touches her arm. “Careful – “

Runaan manages a dry, “Don’t fuss; the rib’s had worse.” He awkwardly pats Rayla on the back, his mug of tea crushed between him and the young elf, before she squirms away.

Rayla asks, “Is everyone home safe?”

Runaan nods. Behind her, Ethari’s shoulders relax again in relief, like he expected the truth to turn sour as soon as he turned away from it. A wondering trickles into his mind – how exactly does Ethari stay sane when his husband is gone for weeks on end? He brushes it away.

“Did you – the mission – “ She searches for the word, pointed ears tilting down the tiniest bit.

“Did we succeed?” Runaan tries.

She nods emphatically, her bit of bedhead shaking free from around her horn.

“We wouldn’t have returned if we didn’t.”

She frowns. Ethari reassures her, “They’d keep trying until the job was done, even if it took longer than planned.”

Runaan had missed the narrow-miss reference to her parents’ disappearance but Ethari, of course, had caught it before things could take a turn for the dour. Ethari adds, “But don’t worry about that. Everyone’s back. And you’re going to see _everyone_ tomorrow, when you and I help for the returning feast.”

Runaan lifts his eyebrows at the mention of the grand celebratory feast to welcome the assassins, scouts, and hunters back to the Silvergrove. They’re like a mini-holiday for the close-knit community, saved for serious expeditions. To Rayla, Runaan says, “Ethari volunteered you for that, did he?”

“She’ll love it,” Ethari insists.

Rayla nods, but is quickly distracted by Runaan’s arm as his sleeve slips in lifting the mug of tea to his mouth. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Runaan opens his mouth, then pauses. “A little hurt, yes.” Rayla understands that she needs to be sneaky, fast, and understand the wilds of Xadia as well as the back of her hand to – one day, when she’s older – protect herself and her team. Rayla _doesn’t_ entirely understand, he fears, that sometimes those wilds have faces, and they fight back.

“Should I tell you the whole story?” Runaan glances askance to Ethari, asking permission. His husband fixes a snag in Rayla’s messy hair, smiles at her when she shoots him a fake-offended look, and then he nods.

Runaan speaks, while Ethari gets himself and Rayla a cup of the same sweet, soothing tea. He doesn’t start _too_ early in the tale – merely tells Rayla their scouts had heard rumours about a human mage and his entourage arriving at a city near the border, planning to capture a clutch of fledgling gryphons for dark magic. This was what the assassins were here for – defend their lands from the humans who wanted to steal from it, human that were led, dumber than dogs, by their blood-bound obsession with hunger and greed.

Rayla listens raptly; he’s always known she has a soft spot for the creatures of Xadia, and this mission wraps her up. He gets pickier with the details when he recounts the mage’s entourage – humans with blades and wits not as dull as the elves expected. He offers her his bandaged, torn arm in explanation when he reaches the part where he was cornered by two of the soldiers.

“We had underestimated their strength, but they had underestimated our strategy.” He gives a little apologetic smile to Ethari. “And stubbornness.”

Rayla examines his arm thoughtfully. “How did you get away from them?”

He meets her curious pink eyes. Something in her already knows the answer; a dark cloud is creeping up, and he’s caught without a way to brush it away before it blocks the light of their moon – of their mission – in her mind. But he won’t mince words.

She has to learn some day. What she’s expected to do. What her parents were expected to do and couldn’t.

“I ended their lives Rayla,” he says, without relish, without pride.

Her eyes flick down to his arm. She idly fixes where the bandage ties together in a way that reminds him of Ethari’s careful attentions.

She says, “The humans should have run away.”

“But they would not,” he says, instead of saying that if the humans tried, the elves would have chased them down, cut them down even if they dropped their swords, before they could rally themselves for another try.

She drifts into thought, all dark clouds and wondering as she sets her hand lightly on his wrist. Eventually she asks, “Was it hard?”

“The easiest thing in the world, when I remember who I do it for.”

“The Dragon Prince.”

“ _And_ ,” he turns his hand to set her own in it, bracing himself against the awkward and exposing position this puts him in to add firmly, “for the Silvergrove, and Ethari, and for you, little blade.”

Rayla mumbles, “That’s a lot of people counting on you.”

“On _us,_ eventually.”

She looks surprised, like it never occurred to her. “Once I’m a part of your team?”

“Exactly. You’ll defend Xadia and the Silvergrove with everything you do, everything you are.”

There’s a flash of pride on her face – the emotion is reflected right back in him. It’s only slightly chipped by another look at his arm, then a glance back at Ethari. At what there is to protect, and how close Runaan came this time to messing all that up.

“But you aren’t one to be scared about others counting on you, Rayla.” Runaan sits back, cringing at his bruised ribs but still managing to smile at the young elf. “Otherwise, how will you stand helping out at the feast tomorrow? All those tired, important, very grumpy assassins waiting on you, everyone knowing it’s _you_ who faltered if something goes wrong…”

She pouts at him and with a fussy wit surely emulated from Ethari’s example, she plucks the near-empty mug from his hands and sets it on the table out of his sore, injured reach. “Time for bed again,” she announces. “You need sleep.”

Ethari laughs lightly. “He certainly does.”

Rayla leaps off the sofa. “You don’t need to tuck me in,” she says confidently, and gives Runaan one last brief hug before scampering back off to bed to the tune of the family’s _goodnights_ and _moon send you sweet dreams._

Runaan takes his mug back and settles back into his restless soreness; if it was up to him, he’d be back on his feet already, but Ethari’s standing sentry at the foot of the sofa. Runaan lifts his eyes to his husband’s, saying, “Don’t go having any ideas about tucking _me_ into bed.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“What’s the look for, then? I avoided the grisly details for her sake.” _Though there’s no use in it_ , Runaan grumbles. _Best to show her the reality early on_.

“I’ve got no look,” Ethari says.

“Dodgy doesn’t suit you.”

Ethari smiles, giving in; Runaan’s stubbornness is good for something after all. “Only a little strange to hear about your work like this. Hearing you spell it out to her. I’ve always known you as an assassin, and never expected anything more or less. But seeing her…it’s...” He shrugs, but the smile is thinning. “Don’t expect her to see it the way you do for a while, all right?”

 _I don’t want to waste time with her thinking the work is easy and unbloodied._ Runaan bites his tongue. “Dodgy and cryptic.”

Rolling his eyes, Ethari pats Runaan’s calf and stands up. “Fine, love. Come to bed and I’ll give you no more riddles.”

Runaan gets up, ignoring Ethari’s offer to support his injured side, but Ethari takes him close anyways. There…may be a tiny part of him that doesn’t mind keeping his chin up and wrestling through pain during the journey back from a mission, deferring the resting time and medicines to his squad, and then coming home to a husband who fusses over him. The same husband that shrugs off his own burns from the forge. _Pride,_ Runaan thinks drily, _surely it’ll do us in one day._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> runaan needs to chill: the chapter

**.**

**.3.**

**.**

Runaan always wakes at the same, foggy, early hour, even when he doesn't have any missions or classes to report to – and even if he hardly slept a wink the night before.

He scowls up at the bedroom ceiling, which doesn't have the decency to gleam with even the slightest drip of dawn. Ethari is dead asleep, his heavy arm slung across Runaan's stomach, brow tucked right under Runaan’s horn. That adds a level of complication as Runaan tries to ease himself out without waking his husband (or knocking him on the head with a horn), giving in to the whim of his internal clock.

...And then he gives in instead to Ethari dragging him against his chest in drowsy protest.

Honestly, allure of a snuggly husband aside, Runaan is usually fine getting up alone. He likes treating Ethari and Rayla to breakfast when he's feeling charitable, or smugly treating them to cleaned pans and lingering savory smells if he's feeling...most of the time. But right now, there's a cloudy pain behind his eyes and a nagging itch in his mind.

Because of Rayla, of _course_.

They'd gotten into another argument. She was angry that he'd miss her eleventh birthday because he was scheduled on a mission. At least he could easily state his case to her. _I can't change guild-initiated plans, Rayla. Let me just send a message to the humans asking them to hold off on their spying, Rayla. This is a very serious task passed on by decrees and in defense of Xadia's remaining queen, Rayla, and I've already celebrated ten other birthdays with you._

"Why don't you just _marry_ the Dragon Queen, Runaan," she'd drawled. "You can both strut around and ignore me to talk about _decrees_."

"My first decree is to stop you from rolling your eyes at me."

She'd rolled them again, hard enough to see her own horns.

Ethari had just stepped out of it.

Runaan and Ethari used to be a team when it came to handling Rayla. When she was little, they banded together for the challenges of telling her that she can't adopt every adoraburr that she swore _loved_ her, or helping her ride a shadowpaw, or standing ten feet apart, waist-deep in a lake, getting her to swim between them (and then carrying her out and reassuring her she was fine while the other towelled off her hair).

But as she grew up, it became clear that Ethari defined _team_ as Runaan, Ethari, _and_ Rayla all working together, while Runaan saw it as he and his husband wrangling the often incomprehensible wild animal that was their - their...their Rayla.

And this time, Ethari had thrown up his hands and said, "This one's up to you two."

"We're both going to stew."

"I'll move into the forge in the meantime."

That part didn't happen (see: Ethari nuzzling into Runaan's hair like a shadowpaw begging for pets). The stewing part definitely did. Runaan didn't _sleep_ and last night Rayla called from the top of the stairs, "Good night only to Ethari, who cares about my birthday _and_ my feelings!"

"Responsibilities, Rayla!"

"Family loyalty, Runaan!"

Runaan huffs through his nose at the memory. He shifts onto his back and idly plays with Ethari's messy fringe, like that'll help.

He pauses. Lifts a bit on an elbow. It's an assassin's paranoia about details that has him focusing on the side table that's pulled a foot out of its home and to the middle of the floor.

Maybe he missed it, heading to bed. Rayla probably used it to reach the top of their bookshelf to borrow something. He was pretty distracted, after all.

 _Ugh._ He constantly feels like Rayla’s missing something, up until _she_ gets upset, and then he's tied up with worries that he's the blind one after all.

He'd even gotten to such a point that last night, pretending to read in bed while Ethari washed up, Runaan asked, "You'd tell me, wouldn't you, if I was being stupid?"

Ethari frowned at him. He sponged the water off his face. "About?"

"Most things."

"I think promising to do that was in our vows. Somewhere between _I swear to always trust you_ and _I swear to always give you back massages after a long day._ "

"Good." Runaan fiddled with the page. Ethari sat on the bed to take off his socks, back to him, and then Runaan blurted, "I meant being stupid about Rayla."

Ethari tipped back, caught himself on his elbows, and looked at Runaan upside down. " _Stupid_ isn't the right word for how you are with her these days."

"Ah. Would _being a colossal insensitive moron_ be more accurate?"

Ethari snorts. He adjusts on the bed and nudges up beside Runaan as if to read over his shoulder. Instead, he kisses his temple, and says, "Far from it. Try: _more willing to break your skull on the learning curve of raising a daughter who's becoming her own person, instead of putting those athletic skills to use and climbing it."_

"A wonder we didn't trip on that one in the vows." Runaan sighed. "She likes you more."

"Because I'm uncomplicated and endearing."

"And far more self-aware than I am."

"Get used to butting heads with her, that's all I'm saying. You run her ragged during training, and I don't think either of you are very good at turning off mentor-mode when you get home."

"I _do_ have an urge to make her fight me when she doesn't tidy her room.”

Ethari had softly laughed, stretching and settling into the pillows, looking enviously comfortable to Runaan who knew even then that he was doomed. "You'll find even ground. Promise."

Now, Runaan wishes he could shake Ethari awake and ask for his thoughts, but he's sleeping so soundly and Runaan is a grown adult who gratefully squirrels away his husband's advice and compliments _only_ when he can pretend he never asked for them.

He pushes Ethari's bangs back between his horns. Occupies himself trying to make them stay. But something catches his eye – more specifically, the lack of something.

There's a shelf in their room which Rayla has, of course, called the cheesiest, meltiest, gooiest thing on earth, which mainly holds the gifts Ethari makes for Runaan each year on his birthday. And one is missing - the forged, sapphire-eyed mouse.

Runaan frowns. It was there when he went to bed. It was nearly knocked by Ethari literally putting his hands up about the argument.

Runaan slips out of Ethari's embrace, then climbs over Ethari to the shelf. The mouse hasn't fallen. It's missing.

He frowns at the misplaced side table.

Oh, certainly, maybe the mouse used it to make its escape.

Runaan pulls a shirt on and pads out of the bedroom. At the top of the staircase, there's something on the wall – a red smear.

Runaan brushes it to find it tacky. It smells sweet. Blood dries black and brown, and this is bright, sugary red. A nice try, though.

Runaan goes down the steps, and finds the den and dining room trashed - well, as trashed as could have been accomplished without actually damaging anything and without disturbing the tossing and turning Runaan, which is actually...pretty impressive. Quilts are thrown about. Chairs were carefully set on their sides in precise chaos. The pantry is spilled, but the glass containers and bins are still shut so it's not actually wasting any food. On the counter is a note written in more of that berry juice: "Find us before dawn. We can make an exchange."

He did not raise a poet.

Runaan continues throughout the small lower level of the house. More tipped objects and streaks on the wall (far more blood than a mouse could reasonably shed and still be worth trading for) lead him, and soon he takes on his own prowl, like he’s scouring the camp of a target. Eventually he picks up a rug beater just for the comfort of something to swing. _Of all the things she could have done -_

Of all the things he expected her to do.

"Runaan, what in all the kingdoms – “

Runaan whirls on Ethari coming up behind him. "Shh! You raised a kidnapper, did you know that?"

Ethari rolls his eyes. So that's where she got it.

Eventually Runaan ends up outside, in the tree-enclosed, lavender yard shared between four houses, where he’d spar and play with her when she was young. The clues have gone dry – the planted ones at least. Now, he looks for organic signs of a disturbance. A shift in the gravel here, a trail of dew-less grass there. Everything seems untouched. If the tacky moonberry gore on the walls is any indication, Rayla set this up around an hour ago. Runaan squints at the surrounding homes. She wouldn’t have gone to a friend’s to wait. She’d want to see with her own eyes that she’d gotten him to play along. He remembers her silly childish triumph in pulling him down in the grass with her, years and years ago. Pull him down to her level, so to speak.

Odd way to get him to look her in the eyes. But he’s standing in the yard barefoot, holding a rug beater and strangely invested in the fiction, so apparently it worked.

The barest drip of dew hits his nose, and that's all the warning he gets – or needs. He ducks out from under the tree, but Rayla manages to hook an arm around his shoulders on her jump down and throw him onto an elbow.

Crouching next to him, Rayla disarms him with a jolt to the wrist and holds the handle of the rug beater against his chest. " _Wow_. Not so sharp before breakfast, huh, Runaan?"

He gives her a generous second to her enjoy her quip before pulling out her leg and sending her crashing onto her butt. She's too fast for that as well – she uses her momentum to hook a foot under his horn, and a few moments of darting, dew-spattered tussling later, Rayla has Runaan on his back and pinned under a knee.

Rayla smirks down at him. She tosses away the rug beater with a flourish like it’s a mage’s staff. Her pink eyes glitter with a familiar over-excited triumph. He can’t help but crack a smile at all of this. _Learning curve of raising a daughter who's becoming her own person,_ indeed, but now they’re speaking the same language.

With a gesture at where she’s pinning him, Runaan says, “ _I_ came peacefully to discuss.”

“I didn’t like the look of you, is all.”

“I’ve heard that before. I’m still interested in negotiating. Where have you hidden it?”

Rayla pulls the little jeweled mouse from her coat’s inner pocket. She holds it out so he can see it’s still in one piece, but he can read in her tension that she expects him to swipe for it. He does, just to give her the satisfaction of pulling it away.

Runaan says, "I never trained you to be an abductor."

"Guess I've got hidden talents. What'll you give me?"

She tosses the mouse back and forth between her hands. Rayla weighs nothing, but still, she's keeping her weight off her knee as if she has a _chance_ of crushing his lungs. His hands are free – in fact, he tucks one under his head to keep the weight off his horns, then lifts the other to prove to her scowl that he’s not trying anything shifty.

Over the last couple days – months, intermittently – he’s ignored her, been ignored in return, tried and quickly failed to send her to bed when she tested the limit of how caustic she can be with him. In other words, forced them to deal with their problems privately. But now, well. He can flip her off him _easily_ , and he chooses not to.

Maybe there’s a poet in her somewhere after all.

Runaan says, “There are specially trained moonstriders at the guild stables. I can finagle a ride for you.”

She shakes her head.

“Provided you don’t tell Ethari it’s my fault, I can send you out with a net and you can keep any adoraburr you catch.”

“I’m not a _kid_ ,” she insists, though she does smile at the silly idea.

“Good, because I wasn’t serious about that one. I hate the things.”

“You’re _really_ not in the position to play games with me.”

He narrows his eyes at her. Thinks. Says, “You left the side table in the middle of the floor.”

She seems to seriously observe the mouse for the first time, turning it so the low lavender light glints in its eyes. “I _wanted_ you to find it early. I should’a mimed screaming to get you moving. I know a trainer who’d blow his top if you showed up _that_ late to his classes.”

He clears his throat; she automatically shifts her weight off the knee again. “All right, final offer.”

She glances over a bit too quickly.

“I’ll just give it to you, Rayla. Have it.”

“What?”

“The sentiment behind it suits you, too.” He explains at her frown, “There. It’s lost all its power. Not so clever now, is it?”

The corners of her frown deepen. Something slumps in her as she takes her leg off his chest and sits back in the grass. "Fine," she mutters, offering the mouse to him. "You don't need to be so proud of what a blockhead you are."

Runaan sits up, slinging his arms over his knees. The chilly, wet grass has soaked through his pants and shirt, reminding him he’s in pajamas, sitting outside before dawn and negotiating for a tiny gift from before Runaan and Ethari had even confessed feelings. A sillier time for a silly situation. Rayla, however, seems to have lost all humour. He guides her hand with the mouse back to her chest.

“I’ll be honest,” he says slowly, “I don’t understand why this matters to you so much.”

Rayla pokes the pads of her fingers with the metal spoke whiskers. He isn’t talking about the forged mouse and she knows it. She shrugs.

“Rayla, you see me all during class, and all during your time at home, too. We’re practically haunting each other,” he says, leaning in, and she at least half-smiles. “I thought you’d love the chance to be free of me for a few weeks.”

Her brow furrows. “I mean, if _you_ think that about _me – “_

“No, of course I don’t,” he presses, and realises it’s truthful, no matter how many times he’s vented to the contrary. “You’re good company when we both behave.”

Rayla snorts. “I guess. And I _do_ see you all the time. But it’s different if it’s my birthday. On that day you’re not, you know – serious mentor Runaan. You’re _just_ Runaan.”

“…Ah.”

Rayla waits for him to cobble together some response. Apparently he takes too long, because she says, “And I don’t like Ethari more than I like you. He’s _just Ethari_ more often, that’s all.”

“You heard that?”

“I stole this thing while you were _in the room_. You think I can’t crouch outside a door?”

He snorts. He brushes a stray leaf out of her hair. “I’ll – I can’t make any promises, but I’ll _ask_ about finding someone to replace me for that mission.”

She fiddles with the mouse’s metal tail, but he sees her smile creep back on her face.

He adds, touching her shoulder, "And my replacement may as well be you, you clever, crazy, quiet thing." More smiles. "You'd finish the mission before the targets even know you're there."

Her expression slightly falters. She hands the mouse over, then gets to her feet, Runaan trailing behind and picking the worst of the grass out of his hair. _Just Runaan._ Somehow that has the cadence of a compliment.

When they get back inside, Ethari has gotten as far as folding up a blanket. He looks up when Runaan lifts the little mouse. “Rescued him only just in time.”

Ethari looks between them, hesitantly optimistic. "You're getting along again, then?"

Rayla answers, "As much as he can with someone who’s so much better than him."

"As much as I can stand," Runaan says, putting the mouse in his husband's offered hand for the safe journey back to the bedroom.

Ethari smiles sleepily at them both. Then he yawns. "Oh, good. Cleaning all this up will go much faster with you two as a team." He kisses a startled Runaan, then heads up the stairs, distinctly muttering, "The stuff they never warn you about living with assassins..."

**.**

**.4.**

**.**

“Rayla needs to be off that ankle for a few weeks,” Ethari says, after he's profusely thanked the medic and sent her on her way. Rayla's upstairs in her room, buried in books.

Runaan says, eyes not leaving his polishing of his dirt-flecked blades, "Interesting conclusion from someone who was turning that fractured ankle like it was a leaky faucet."

Ethari cringes. "She was...rough. She's used to tending to elves like you. She took one look at Rayla's uniform and figured we'd called her for a stab to the kidney."

"I'm sorry Rayla and I disappointed her."

Ethari walks by Runaan with something in his arms – the muddy bundle of Rayla’s training boots, bracers, and cloak that they'd dumped at the door earlier. On the field she'd insisted through Runaan's (gentle!) checking of her ankle that she was fine, she didn't need to be carried home, she didn't even need the damn boots off. She was wobbling on the walk back because she was just – just avoiding stepping on the resting luna moths, duh. The damned girl even pushed ahead of Runaan so he'd stop trying to help her.

They got home, Rayla insisting to Ethari she just needed to sit down for a second. Runaan had met Ethari's eyes. Said flatly, "Get a medic."

Now, Ethari looks up the stairwell. He gives a breathless, almost relieved laugh. "Stars, she reminds me of you. Like the world can't touch you if you didn't give it permission first."

"I've never thought such a thing," Runaan responds. But he gives Ethari a sidelong, wryly humorous look. "I’ve _also_ never gotten hurt, or angry, or been bothered by anyone's idiot opinions of me – especially not the guild leader, the bastard."

"Never has a stage play made you cry, either…"

"Of course not. I choose, deliberately and judiciously every time, to cry." Runaan sighs. “Hand that over. I’ll take care of the washing; I have my own to deal with, as well.”

It’ll certainly keep him busy; keep his mind on something other than today’s disastrous training session. He stands from the table and reaches for the muddy-slick clothes, but Ethari tugs it away.

“Not now.”

“Don’t you have work to get back to?” Runaan asks.

Ethari retorts evenly, “Don’t you have something you should be doing?”

“Yes. The washing. Unless you like me tracking mud all over the place.”

“It’s a look I could get used to, but that isn’t what I meant.”

Runaan can’t help but tightly smile at his husband; he’s being coy again, and Runaan knows exactly why. Ethari tiptoes around words for very specific reasons. When they were younger, Runaan thought it was just from shyness. He'd fill in the blanks that Ethari left between them.

_You can kiss me if you'd like._

_I don't like surprises, so if you're thinking of marrying me, I want to honestly discuss how that'd work._

And earlier than those - _Whatever you think my work makes me, forgive my bluntness, but you're probably wrong._

After they got married, he didn't have much to be evasive about...until Rayla came around.

Runaan deliberately veers off topic. “I know you have deadlines coming up, so I'll take time off to watch over her. Besides, Rayla doesn’t need a few weeks – she _shouldn’t_ need a few weeks. She isn’t just any elf.”

“Certainly more stubborn than most.”

“Exactly. Too stubborn to accept any apology, so don’t think you’re being crafty by nudging me into making one.”

Ethari lifts a keen eyebrow at him. “Knowing what went down, she deserves to get one anyways.”

Runaan stomachs the fact that clearly Rayla told Ethari what happened when they were alone upstairs, and either Runaan made her so angry that she risked the vulnerability of admitting it - or he made her so upset – or she only guards herself around _him._

Today, Rayla was just… - Rayla always put every ounce of will into everything she did. That made her behaviour lately frustrate him even more. He’s been training her for more than half her life. How is she still squeamish about hitting him? How is she still worried about aggression, about drawing a little blood, when she has a strength and tenacity he hasn’t seen in any other elf her age? She’s missing follow-through. She’s missing poison. But to leave her behind completely because she keeps failing _here_ would be to dismiss all of her hard work and talent.

“Can I at least know your side of what happened?” Ethari asks. “Or can I at least have your coat?”

Runaan shrugs the mud-specked thing off; Ethari sets Rayla’s uniform on the table and Runaan adds his clothing to the pile. He continues cleaning out the grooves of his knives – it's the least respect he can pay to the time-tested weapons, and to their craftsmen, who he's been avoiding uncomfortable truths with more and more recently.

There were no serious guidelines with Lain and Tiadrin if – if what happened to them did happen. But Runaan is sure, deep in the dregs of soured fondness for Rayla’s parents, that they wouldn’t want Rayla to feel responsible for a rift between Runaan and Ethari.

If their wishes count for anything. At the very least, Runaan knows _he_ doesn't want Rayla to feel that way.

Ethari drops his jaw onto his hand. “All right, I’d prefer the story, actually.”

Runaan speaks. He’d been working with his usual undergraduate squadron, in a standard capture-the-flag set-up – the ten of them versus Runaan and two of his colleagues. Rayla, of course, was his focus, since she was leagues ahead in speed and stealth. He wouldn’t need the lesson to teach her like the rest of them. He’d use it to give her the challenge she so desperately needed.

He’d faced her, both of them alight with the pride of her being a split-second from winning for her whole team. Only for him to refuse to let her squirm out by running. Chased her, though that was never the plan. Scared her, maybe. And she’d gotten hurt, cornered in the mud and the rain of the twisty, dizzy forest outside the Silvergrove, and far too eager to take his bait rather than put her skills to use.

“She’s too fond of turning her back,” Runaan argues. “She constantly outperforms everyone during lessons, so she doesn’t think they don’t matter. But as soon as I give her a corner, she climbs up the wall instead of fighting back.”

“So…you want her to try to kill you? I'm sure she’s soft on you because she wants someone to cook her dinner afterwards.”

Runaan spares his husband a sighing smile. “I’ve taught enough failed students to know the signs.”

“When it counts, she’ll do what she has to.”

Runaan opens his mouth, hesitates, then goes for it. “So they said about her parents.”

The reference drops a dark cloud on the room, the sort that makes every subtle movement in his hands or posture look like the culprit of some deep traitorous thought.

Even Ethari's impeccable judge of character failed everyone when it came to Lain and Tiadrin. The situation stings him just as badly. They were all close friends, after all. Runaan had felt the same pride in them when they joined the Dragonguard as he feels for Rayla every time she outsmarts him, outpaces him. But look how that ended up.

Maybe that betrayal still smarts, and it’s what had him backing her into a corner and trying, for a second, to convince himself and Rayla that he was trying in earnest to cut her down.

If that runs in the blood, she’ll fail. Who knows at what. Who knows how Xadia will change in her lifetime, and what the assassins will have to do. But she will fail, and it will kill her.

Runaan mutters, wry, “I’ll hire some shady Skywing elf to scare her and see if he winds up dead.”

“What about when she works with the other instructors? Is she more aggressive with them?” Ethari casually adds, looking at some inconspicuous place on the ceiling, “Does she _ever_ work with them, or do you stick in your nose every chance you get?”

“Ah…the last thing. Maybe.”

“All right. I’ll shadow you to work, and keep you on a leash. Only way to get a fuller assessment of her.”

"I so missed your sweet talk."

Runaan stands to get on with the wash and give Rayla space. He'll force himself to wait a few weeks _._ She’ll get sloppy in that time. Besides, it’s not a bad skill to have, learning how to maneuver on something fractured, though he can expect worse than a leash from Ethari if that gets out.

But Ethari offers one last thing. “She’ll sense you doubting her because of them. Hardly fair.”

“If I wasn’t being fair, I’d’ve thrown her out the first time she purposely aimed for swords, not skin.”

"Ru, can you sit back down?"

Runaan does. He folds the blades into their hilts and meets his husband's gold eyes. Ethari leans forwards on the table, touching Runaan's wrist for good measure.

“None of us saw it coming – what happened with the Dragonguard,” Ethari says, terse.

“I didn’t see it back then, no, because I didn’t want to believe it,” Runaan acknowledges. “But if her parents lent me one thing from that incident, it was a better sense for signs like this.”

Ethari huffs, “Let her fail you, then, if it makes you proud to be right.”

“ _Rayla_ makes me proud. And I don’t want to be ashamed of someone I love ever again,” Runaan snaps back.

Ethari sighs, then scrapes his white hair back between his horns. They both swallow the hard edges of their tones. Runaan sketches an apology by taking the bundle of messy clothing and slinging it over an arm.

Ethari lifts his chin at the laundry. “I hope that's not your only apology for being an ass.”

"Consider me in your debt."

" _And_ Rayla’s."

"Yes, and Rayla’s.”

Rayla had lost her usually-impeccable balance in the mud, blocking rather than swinging, letting go entirely to tell him she’d hurt her ankle. He’d swung at her again instead, scraping her cheek, and only stopped then.

 _I would’ve taken out your eyes,_ he’d said.

 _Only if you were enough of a coward to hurt a downed opponent,_ Rayla had said, her sarcasm stinging him far less than her tears did.

_Your job is to kill what you must, no matter how pathetic they look, Rayla._

He’d folded his blade and offered a hand. She didn’t take it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the family issues chapter. first one is a little rocky, second one is just. peak family nonsense.  
> thank you for the comments and kudos! :)

**.**

**.5.**

**.**

Rayla hasn’t completed her course yet.

Runaan is working privately with her in the depths of the woods, something she grouses about to tease him but always shows up over-prepared for. Normally, he can set up any test for her, and she’ll tear through it before Runaan’s really gotten the chance to settle into his ambush point. She performs so well that it’s hard for him to not brag when he and the other squadron leaders report on their protégés.

Sometimes they tease him, downplaying Rayla’s skill and achievements by implying he’s just favouring her since she’s his – well, she’s not really _his_ anything, but he’s her guardian. He doesn’t _favour_ her. He works her harder than anyone else so she doesn’t get used to coasting. Rayla definitely doesn’t think he favours her. Or she shouldn’t.

He checks the angle of the moon through the trees, the light inching along his arm in a silent march of time. Definitely late.

She not his anything, but he’s still worried by her absence, and he grimaces at the jabs _that_ would earn from his cohorts as he drops from the tree and starts down the path.

Either she’s getting back at him for something, or some trouble’s caught her up. He has a guess. He designed this course. He tries to pry some mentor-ly frustration out of his feelings but just ends up with more annoying worry.

Runaan scans the forest closely as he traverses, pricking his ears for any sounds that may belong to her. He humours himself with the thought that maybe, again, he’s stumbled into _her_ ambush, and he’s nearly convinced of it when a white-haired shadow zips through the thick trees.

“Rayla!” he calls. She keeps moving, scaling a tree and trying to throw a cheeky look back at him, but is caught off-guard by the dagger he throws into her fluttering hood, harmlessly pinning her. She squirms out of the fabric and hits the ground. But at least she doesn’t run.

“What now, Runaan?” she complains. “I’m doin’ as you _asked.”_

“What held you up for so long?”

She folds her arms. “My trainer throwing a dagger at me.”

“Before that.”

“I can still make time if you’d let me race you.”

“I know you can, so I don’t care for an example.”

Rayla rolls her eyes. She shows him her belt, lined with the assorted coloured flags he’d hidden throughout the woods, and his count comes up short. He runs over the layout of the forest, and lands on the easy answer. He frowns at her. Rayla is throwing a rock at the pinned knife a few yards up to dislodge it. When the cloak floats into her arms, he says, “You’re not still scared of water, are you?”

Her pink glower is sharper than the dagger she underhand tosses at him. This part of the forest is cut by a wide river, thorny with rocks; setting up earlier today, he’d considered letting Rayla avoid it for long enough that – well, the other squad leaders _sometimes_ have a point, sort of. A quarter-mile south has the river breaking up into a tangle of streams that can be leapt over by everyone but the younger initiates, but he’d figured forcing her through the thick of it would be a good idea.

A _fair_ idea.

“Not scared, Runaan,” she says, in her usual drawling tone like he’s missed the obvious mark by a mile, “just found a better way around.”

“And slower.”

“It can still be _better.”_

He sighs, because she has a point, but it isn’t _his_ point. He lifts his chin at her and starts walking the way she came. Rayla keeps a few paces behind him.

She says, “If I went through, I would’a gotten wet enough to be tracked the whole way. It’d’ve logged my weapons, and this thing’s finicky enough already without rust.” She demonstrates by holding out her blade, a training one that’s been traded down for years, and showing him its sticky hinge. “Why can’t I get my own yet?”

“You need to get used to working with setbacks.”

“So should you. Old Runaan, complaining I’m _late…_ would you halt a mission to lecture someone who stopped to piss?”

“Watch your mouth, little one.”

“You’ve got a retort for everything. It’s like you practice in front of the mirror.”

They reach the shore: the water breaks white and grey around slick rocks and muddy grasses, even splattering under their feet from a rainy season raising the level. Runaan asks her to explain, so Rayla says she veered to where the water broke into small streams that she could dance over, rather than swimming.

Runaan points up. “You didn’t have to swim.”

Rayla frowns at the canopy. The trees grow so thick and tangled that with speed and precision like hers, she could’ve easily leapt her way across. Plus, there’s one of the flags knotted in the branches.

“Well,” he amends, “you could have. If you weren’t afraid of falling.”

“Okay, Runaan, I played it safe. So? I didn’t take an hour _._ I didn’t lose track of where I should be going. Nothing bit my head off, except _you_. And I found every other flag, right?”

“No.”

“I was close, though.”

He studies her, choked a bit by his irritation. “That isn’t the point.”

“Why don’t you just thank me for being resourceful and we move on?” She swings the sticking blade a few times, snapping the hinge close enough to egg him into blocking her with a bracer. “You promised you’d show me new moves – “

“Rayla, dear, you’re nearly a teenager,” he says.

“And teenagers can’t stab things?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

She tucks the blade away, but her expression is far from defeated. Beside them, the river splatters water on their ankles. When marking this route, he didn’t expect her to swim it – for the reasons she said. No reason bogging herself down, wet and heavy. But he expected her to know that she couldn’t just avoid it entirely.

She’s always been afraid of water. It was a curiosity and even comedic when Lain and Tiadrin would lament how fussy she got at bath time, and pathetically endearing when Runaan and Ethari encountered the same challenge. Less amusing but understandable when she grew up a bit, and would cling to Ethari’s leg if they crossed a bridge on their strolls. Frustrating when she was nine, ten, eleven, and wouldn’t _dare_ submerge her head even if she could do damned _backflips._

Now she’s twelve. He’s never really forced her to face this. There were so many other things to work through, and there still are.

He says, “Maybe you were right, when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness. I’d hardly expect my legion to swim in a current this hard if there was a way around it. Which there _was,_ ” he lifts his eyes pointedly to the canopy again, “but I’ll let you have this one.”

She folds her arms jauntily. “ _Thank_ you.”

“But let’s say circumstances are different. I need you to cross that water, Rayla.”

“What’s the circumstance?”

He humours her. “Human-trained banther tracking the blood on your clothes. You’re cornered, and everyone knows those beasts won’t touch water. Swimming through shakes its enthusiasm and the scent.”

“Don’t think it can reach those trees either,” Rayla says, pointing.

“Rayla,” he warns.

“It’s just _water,_ Runaan.”

“It’s your world, Rayla. There is supposed to be nothing in it that can stop you.” _Nothing that you give permission to hurt you._ “A mage, a human, maybe, but not Xadia itself.”

She wrinkles her nose. She pointedly places one foot on the edge of the river, a touch away from the frothy current. Like it proves something.

Runaan says, matching her closeness to the water, “You’re at the top of practically everything. I’m not going to let this pull you down.”

“I can do it, Runaan.”

He angles around her, dropping his arms loosely, but keeping a close eye on her. “If you were in danger? If it made the best sense for your mission? You’d cross it?”

“Yes,” Rayla snaps. She turns with him.

He takes a step, nudging her a bit into the shore. “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes,_ Runaan – “ Her heel skids down the embankment, but she jolts back up, and snaps, “I’m sure.”

He scowls at her. He pushes her another step; Rayla is not so graceful making her way down the slope. She skids and splashes calf-deep into the water. She frantically adjusts to get the rocks secure under her feet. She drops her arms too, so if she slips, she can catch herself. His heart twists a bit.

“Go on and cross then, Rayla,” he says lightly.

“I’m not in _danger, Runaan,”_ she sneers mockingly. He sees her lock her muscles, the body language of a scowl and folded arms and a stomped foot.

“Should I give you the inspiration?”

A flicker of shock moves across her face. He buries any discomfort with that. She doesn’t move. Either that’s from her fear – or her complete unwillingness to do what she’s told. As a teacher and as a squadron leader, he isn’t used to having his will challenged, and she totally knows how annoying it is – how much it pushes him into a corner, too.

Maybe she’ll grow out of it. Maybe he’ll shove her out of it, as he’d been advised by those same elves who thought he was coddling her. Maybe whatever vicious thing inside her that makes her so headstrong will let her transform beyond the flimsy, ghastly silhouettes of Lain and Tiadrin.

He snaps the blade from its holster on his lower back, flinging open the metal with a scrape. Rayla’s eyes flick to it.

“Don’t be showy,” she says.

“I’m not.”

He strides into the water with her, towering over her. The current wrenches at his legs like some hungry thing’s teeth, and for a second he can see what made her hesitate.

But perhaps there’s some weakness that reveals itself in the way he moves towards her across the rocks, because Rayla snaps with all the quick triumph of striking for a gap in armour, “I’ll cross when I need to. I’m not _them.”_

He hesitates. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re thinking it.” Her stance slips on the wet rocks but she rights herself. “I…I do everything else you ask. Why do you have to focus on this? Everyone else gets to learn and fail but _me.”_

 _You’re special, Rayla._ It’s such a simple answer, but it’s so _incomprehensible_ all the same. It cuts on the way up, so he seals it behind his teeth, flooding bitterness. “This isn’t a failure, or a slip of skill. You can’t learn your way out of this fear. This is a clear weakness.”

“Yeah. They were cowards at the end, and you think this means I’ll be a coward too.” Rayla swipes her hand at the water behind them. She’s refusing to move, so they’re practically touching; the water breaks around their legs and meets with a splash behind them. “I don’t expect you to baby me all the time, or congratulate me, but you could at least have some faith in me.”

“Of course I do – “

“So why aren’t you back up on the shore and asking me _nicely?”_

“Why are _you_ arguing when you could just walk backwards?”

“Because I’m afraid,” she snaps. “Happy? Why are you such an ass?”

“Clearly I need to push you – “

“You’re already pushing enough _–“_

“I only do that because your failures _terrify me_ ,” he returns, too fast.

Rayla presses her mouth into a hard line. He feels the odd floating, raw sensation in his chest that he gets after running for a long while. Her gaze flicks onto the water. Back on him.

She says quietly, “I’m not going to cross. Not if you’re mad at me. Get out of the way,” she tries, but he moves before her when she tries to get to the shore. “Runaan, you win, okay – “

“Hardly,” he says, because he feels winded and weird. He takes her arm and eases her back to the water. “I’m not mad at you, either.”

Rayla glowers at some undetermined spot over his shoulder. “What did you mean?”

“You fail in a mission, and everything fails with you. There is not much room for error.”

“Oh.”

“Errors will get you hurt.”

“Or worse.”

He swallows. “Very likely.”

“Terrified’s a big word, you know.”

“I know.”

“Are you really?”

“Always.”

“Of course. You wouldn’t say something that embarrassing even to mess with me.” She tries to meet his eye and enunciates, “I’m not – “

“I know you aren’t them.” He raised Rayla more than they did, after all, which is an immensely sobering thought. “But they…” He swallows again. “They haunt everything. Their cowardice does. I believed in them and they broke my heart long before they broke Xadia’s.”

Rayla doesn’t answer for a moment. She hugs an arm across her stomach, and from it he can tell that means she’s ready to be vulnerable, and he wonders at how he got to learn that and Lain and Tiadrin did not. She finally says, “Mine too. They were my heroes.”

_And you seem like you’re shaping up to be mine, little blade, but I’m more afraid of you getting yourself hurt than you hurting me._

Runaan reaches tentatively for her arm again but she jerks it away. Rayla inches her way off the rocks, turning away into the thick of the water, her shoulders bunching up from cold and fear and determination. She makes it to her thighs in the current before Runaan catches her wrist and leads her back to the shore.

He helps her back up the slippery rocks. He feels scraped raw.

Rayla says dryly, “I was going to do it. Figures you don’t even let me prove you wrong.”

He lets her have the last word if she wants it. But he doesn’t need her to prove anything. What with how shaken he feels, it seems like nothing is as brave as them finally confessing those words to each other.

**.**

**.6.**

**.**

Rayla is very determinedly _not_ looking at Runaan, as he leans next to her against the kitchen counter, watching her fight with a bottle of wine.

The kitchen, to her credit, isn’t a wreck, and he trusts her to have packed up things that aren’t burnt or over-salted. But this last bit of prep for Ethari’s atypical birthday is proving to be a smidge too much for her.

Rayla uses her shoulder to block his view of her slipping grip on the cork. Runaan says, delighting in the unhelpfulness of it, “Ethari should be let off work in twenty minutes.”

“That’s why I’m nearly done. I didn’t wanna start too early or everything would’ve dried out.”

“A good instinct.”

“Do you want somethin’?”

“Do you?”

“Don’t want _help_.”

“Then I’m getting _exactly_ what I want. Watching the littlest assassin lose to a cork.”

She rolls her eyes and sets the wine down. She starts rooting around in the drawers, hopefully for a bottle opener.

Twenty minutes is a generous assumption for poor, sweet Ethari’s ability to detach himself from his forge responsibilities on his own birthday. He’s working with a few undergraduates on making a set of prototypes for new shadowpaw bridles, lending his experience and metalwork, but the group’s aspirations and ideas are landing somewhere north of the moon. They’re overzealous and under-practised, but their presentations are due to the guild in a couple days, so Ethari agreed to stick around after his clocked hours to give them a hand.

Also, it’s been storming since they woke up.

Hence the blanket set out in the den, the furniture shoved away to make space for their facsimile of Ethari’s birthday tradition. Rayla was set on adding adoraburrs to the mix if she could catch them, for _atmosphere,_ and maybe Runaan’s getting soft in his old age, because he let her rescue a pair from a soaking hedge and now they’re probably getting his sofa all furry.

Rayla snatches a paring knife and stabs it in the cork. She tries to pry it out.

“For the love of – Rayla.” Runaan relieves her of the knife and bottle, and gets out the corkscrew. He easily pulls out the cork and hands the bottle back. “You little whirlwind.”

“Wait ‘til you see what I used to scrape the pans,” Rayla jabs. She puts the knife and corkscrew back where they belong, then pulls down some glasses which she fills – then stares at them. Something seems to occur to her, as she gets a look on her face like when she’s spotted a particularly lucky foothold in a cliff-face. She turns away to dig through more things on the counter opposite, and Runaan stands aside, watching closely.

He says, “Seventeen minutes.”

“Shush.”

“He’ll appreciate this, truly, Rayla,” Runaan says. “It’s a very thoughtful idea.”

He may have screwed up with her more times than he can count, but at least he’s genuinely complimented her often enough that she doesn’t miss a beat in smiling at him.

“Thanks. He’s having the longest day of his life, huh?”

“I’d bet.”

Runaan sweeps across the kitchen to stand beside her and get another look at what she’s working on. Baby-proofing the house was a pointless endeavour from the beginning, and the tradition still holds, since now she’s emptying every alcohol and mixer they have from the top cabinets.

Moscato is one thing. Whisky is another. He waits patiently though part of him wants to pull this out of her hands even faster than the knife. Another part of him stalls, as something in her silhouette is so reminiscent of Tiadrin – she, Lain, Ethari, and Runaan crowded in this very kitchen, hardly managing to get everything on the table before they’ve finished their glasses and finished their plates from all the snacking between stories.

Rayla says, pretending to read the hand-written label for who knows what, “I was thinking we do this, then do somethin’ easy, like cards, then presents before bed. It’s already so late.”

“Fine with me. No class for you tomorrow. Sleep in.”

She gives him a sardonic look. They both know neither of them is capable of such a ridiculous thing.

Rayla says instead, her tone going all sarcastically mopey, “And I’ll go to bed early for you two to spend time together _. Alone.”_

“It’s the least you could do. We haven’t had privacy for – what is it, nine years now?”

“As long as you keep it down.” Rayla wrinkles her nose. “I hear you, you know. All _I love you so much_ and _remember all these great times when we were in **love** _and _my heart_ this, _your heart_ that.”

Runaan has the decency to blush. As long as that’s all she’s hearing.

Rayla pulls glasses down from the cupboard. She starts pouring. Clear, sharp-smelling alcohol here, the bright pink, glass-bottled moon berry juice there. He cringes at how much lemon she pours in.

Rayla stares at the glass, as if she’s only just realised she has no idea how to test if it’s right or not. She’s probably only seen Ethari make this for himself at their friends’ dinner parties, or been bewildered by the colour and scent of the mysterious thing when she was little.

“Stop breathing down my neck _,_ Runaan.”

“I’m saying nothing, dear.”

“For _now_. I know the second I mess up, you’ll – …” Again, she tries to angle herself to hide what she’s up to. He takes her shoulder and pushes her back where she was.

“I’ll stop you from poisoning my husband. That’s all. Speaking of,” he reaches across her to take the glass. His eyes sting just waving the thing under his nose. “ _This_ will drop him on the spot.”

“It looks all right to me,” Rayla says.

“You’re sure?” He lifts an eyebrow at her. She does the same back. She’s holding her ground, but a smirk flicks at the corner of her mouth. He challenges, “If you think it’s fine, try it.”

Her pink eyes widen. She’s fourteen. It won’t kill her.

The way she takes the glass from him with a determined eagerness to prove him wrong reminds him very suddenly, very sharply, _again,_ of Tiadrin.

They hold each other’s gaze. Her eyes narrow. The pink moon berry juice can hardly permeate to the bottom of the glass through all the whisky. He’s never been the _cool_ one between her guardians (Tiadrin would’ve been, had she the chance, clearly), even if teaching her how to scour a featureless wall and shoot down a target blind is plenty cool. Rayla knows there’s a trick.

But he’s also unwittingly taught her to be stubborn, so she drinks anyways.

The poor girl takes a full swallow without even tasting it. She nearly upends the glass when shoving it onto the counter, her eyes squeezing shut and hand slapping over her mouth, but to her credit, she doesn’t miss punching his arm when he chuckles at her.

“ _Disgusting_ ,” she manages, pained. “How does he even _stomach_ that?”

“He doesn’t. You’re not mixing punch. Not so simple.”

After a few more coughs (and accepting the water he gets her), Rayla manages to laugh at the situation. She grins at him and says, “You should teach me how to do it properly, then.”

“Kings, no. I’m not teaching you a single thing. You took my privacy, you’re not taking my expensive drinks, too.”

She coughs a little more. “Fine, I’ll quit. I just thought it’d be neat if I made _that_. Bet he doesn’t notice that I keep an eye on those things.”

“Don’t worry. I, too, was once an embarrassing failure.”

“Hey!”

He smirks at her. Something about the moment feels oddly…right. They haven’t made each other laugh in quite a while. Tiadrin is still nagging at the edge of his mind. For some reason, the thought of her name doesn’t burn quite as badly, and he’s nearly tempted to speak it aloud between them – but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment for Rayla.

It’s usually that way: sometimes the memories surface unexpectedly with obsidian-sharp edges and a toxic tang, so painful it’s as if they’ll never be safe again, and other times they’re so blunted and lukewarm that he can’t imagine how they ever could have hurt. He hasn’t figured out the exact formula yet. Something about the difference between them sneaking up on him and them being coaxed calmly out of the shadows like Rayla’s favourite adoraburrs.

Rayla frowns at him. “Well, come on. You’ve got to elaborate.”

“I do, don’t I. Hm.” He takes up one of the glasses of wine she’d poured before the moon berry fiasco, sniffs it as a test just to tease her, and leans against the counter across from her. She keeps an eye on him so he can’t sneak away. “I wanted to walk Ethari at least halfway from work. Deal with all the _my heart_ this and that’s while you’re out of the way.”

She folds her arms. “The story can’t be _that_ long.”

He sips the wine and thinks. “I suppose, once, when I was training at your level – “

“No, wait.” Rayla shakes her head. “Not one of those stories. Something else.”

“What kind of story?”

“I dunno. Something about you and Ethari when you were younger? Nothing mushy, though.”

That cuts his repertoire by a lot. If there was ever a time where he was _sure_ to humiliate himself, it was in courting Ethari _._ He says, “I’m coming up short, then. We have always been decidedly mushy.”

“ _Ew.”_

“Unless – “ He hesitates, like he can carefully lead her into this. But there’s no real way to ease it. There’s only the plunge. And this framing – it’s so unlike how they usually come to his mind. Part of him feels a little bad for that, and part of him feels righteous. Runaan hazards, “Unless, you wouldn’t mind hearing about your parents.”

“Please. I’ve already known the dumbest thing they’ve done,” she says, a little sharply.

“You’ve never heard of Lain as a teenager,” he returns, managing somehow to smile about it, just the tiniest fraction.

Rayla’s eyes drop to some random place on the counter, but her mind is a million miles away. Well, maybe he has a new story to add – that one time he, apparently, was feeling foolishly sentimental and tried to bring up her parents to her, when it’s always been a barbed, vicious wire between them. Between Runaan and Rayla. Between Rayla and her future. Him, and how to put his life back on course.

Never mind.

Runaan clears his throat. He lifts the wine glass at her. “I’ll fetch Ethari, then, whether those workers want to give him up or not.”

Rayla snaps out of it. She taps her hands on the counter behind her distractedly. “Check on the adoraburrs, can you?”

“Of course. I’m sure they’re happily ruining things.”

He gives them a second. The awkwardness gets so thick it feels like it’ll start oozing out of the walls. Runaan turns back into the den.

“Wait – wait.” Rayla hasn’t moved, but she’s leaning forwards off the counter as her hands cling to it, like she’s being pulled along by some current. “I guess it…I guess it’s fine. If you want to tell me the story. About…them.”

He pauses. “It’ll only be small.”

“Yeah. I figure. It’s not…I mean, it’s from a long time ago, so it’s whatever, right?”

Runaan comes back to stand by her. It’s not like he’s _never_ thought on them fondly since it all happened. It’s nearly impossible for him or Ethari to reminisce and not stumble upon something to do with Lain and Tiadrin. But it’s easy to define them by their end, by their choices. It’s the paint that colours every memory of them, but surely the sketch is still somewhat of value, he sometimes catches himself thinking.

He may never think on them kindly. That fills him with a hopeless, strange feeling. He’s only had one night with Ethari where they agreed to drink out of glasses perhaps even more poorly measured than the one Rayla just made, and lay out everything about their former best friends on the table. Every tale, every hope, every moment that felt full of love. It’s practically Lain’s fault that they got together when they did, after all, the poor bastard practically writing scripts for Runaan to finally get out his entirely-not-simple feelings for Ethari.

It’s _entirely_ Lain and Tiadrin’s fault that Rayla is standing here with a frown on her face and conflict behind her eyes. Their fault she’s standing here at all. Their fault Runaan has her. Their fault she isn’t just a snotty kid he got quickly impatient of every week when they visited, or remained a girl he watched grow up from the sidelines.

Their fault he gets to see who she truly, truly is.

He swallows. Chases it with the wine. He’s never liked being drunk, so that night with Ethari he didn’t get drunk at all, but it still felt sort of nice to pretend he’d lost hold completely and it was something else’s fault that he was crying.

“All right,” Runaan says. “I’ll tell you.”


End file.
